We’re Back!

Yes, it's true. We are back in our home in the U.S. enjoying all of the comforts of home. I wanted to drop you all a short line to say how much I appreciated all of you reading my blog and also to mention a few late-breaking reflections regarding our experiences.

Reflection #1
It’s really nice to be back. Unlimited fresh water. A strong supply of hot water. Showers. Highways, stop signs, stoplights. A plethora of restaurants. Grocery stores with gazillions of items. A hundred (or more) kinds of cheese… Ice cream. Literally hundreds of other observations of the differences between here and there. For the first week we were back all I could say was “this is very different world that we live in.”

Reflection #2
We really have too much stuff. I cannot believe how much stuff we have. There are moments when I am completely embarrassed by how much we have. Not that I have someone to be embarrassed to... but embarrassed as in mortified that we have so many things that we do not need.

Neither one of us are employed, at present, so we do have some time where we will be able to work on de-cluttering our lives… I am looking forward to it.

Reflection #3
They say there's this thing called "reverse culture shock" when you go somewhere foreign, spend a long time there, and then come back to your "home culture." Yes, I experienced this. No, it has not been too severe.

During our first few minutes back on American "soil" I found my way to a bookstore in the airport in Chicago (O'Hare, that is). I was in awe of the number of books available. I hadn't seen a selection of books like that since leaving. Then I picked up a small pocket sized journal. Lined paper, $7. Not including tax. And all I could do was stare at it and think 1200 Naira. Maybe a week’s wage for some. A week’s wage for this trifle. Not that we didn’t spend our share of money on seemingly frivolous things while we were there (Coke, Snickers, Shortbread).

And while I have continued to spend more than my share on seemingly frivolous things, I have not done so with anywhere near the reckless abandon of my former self.

Before we got home we decided we would go out to eat whenever we wanted for the first two weeks we were back, as a kind of celebration, before starting on a much stricter watch-what-we-spend kind of regimen. We didn’t go out to eat every meal. Or every day for that matter. Yesterday was our last day. I was craving cheesecake so I said let’s get Buca curbside-to-go. Stephanie had wanted me to go out solo for sushi as I had been craving it and hadn’t had it since being home. I thought… $40 for dinner? For just me? I can’t do it. For $40 we can get an order of pasta, some dessert, and have some money left over. Six thousand Naira. More than a month’s wage for some. One meal for us. Shameful.

Danger

We did experience some real danger living in Nigeria. Not that we experienced all that much first hand. Well, aside from the gunshots I heard right outside our hotel in Lagos. And that one other time we heard gunshots while sitting in our house one night.

There is always danger where there is significant poverty mingled with a small percentage of the population willing to use violence or other wicked devices to try to improve one’s station.

I was told I should always lock the car doors while traveling. Always keep your money hidden from sight. Never speak about money in public. Do not carry more than $50 or $60 with you at any time. Never travel alone to change money. Do not make any other stops after you change money, but rather, go straight home. Keep any money that you have at home in a secret, safe place (cue Gandalf “keep it secret, keep it safe”).

For the most part I was good about all of these things. Except locking the car doors. One out of every three or four trips Stephanie would have to remind me to lock the car doors. And there were certainly other times that I forgot…

As I think we’ve mentioned, there were no fewer than six security measures for our home: Locked gate (tho’ it was never “locked” I don’t think), compound guard, watchdog, outside padlock, bars on the windows, a main door deadbolt, a padlocked gate across the back door and dead bolts and skeleton key locks on all room doors.

And that’s just our general physical and financial security while in our home and traveling in our home city of Enugu. Healthwise, and traveling outside of Enugu, there is another entire set of rules and guidelines for recommended safety.

The U.S. Mission employees here in Nigeria (i.e., the embassy people, U.S. diplomats living in Nigeria) do not travel to Abia state without a whole host of extra security measures. See, you can get kidnapped, held for ransom, mainly. Twice while we were here, I traveled to Abia state. Certainly, it’s not as dangerous as, say, Akwa Ibom, Rivers, or Delta states… those are the really dangerous ones. And certainly not as dangerous as Iraq or Iran or North Korea. Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Saudi Arabia would carry a whole new set of risks. Not to mention living in Lagos… I don’t even want to think about it! But there are certainly a number of places in North America that would be equally if not more dangerous…

One time we were in Abia state, the host pastor had arranged (unbeknownst to us aforetime) a security detail for us. We had two or maybe three armed policemen nearby the whole time we were there.

On the road the police checkpoints are really unnerving. You never know when they’re going to ask for a bribe (or “dash” as they call it here) and Bro. McLean has never been interested in paying up. One time and only one time there was a policeman who asked us for money. (This is out of something like 35 or 40 such checkpoints I have been through). That is not to say that the checkpoints always proceed without incident. Twice we were hung up to check the paperwork on the tinted windows (long story) and another time we experienced a verbal dressing down (for who knows what) and then there was another time they wanted to see the paperwork for the vehicle and then one other time to check my fire hydrant. I really hate the checkpoints.

I guess the only other major worry for us has been disease. To be a little more specific, malaria is the main concern. I haven’t been concerned for myself. You get malaria, you take the drugs, most of the time no problem. Untreated, malaria can have a high fatality rate. And when you bring a three year old into a country where the medical facilities are not nearly as reliable as the ones back in the U.S., you tend to worry a whole lot more about even the smallest of potential problems. But I will bring my focus back to malaria, specifically.

“Each year, there are approximately 350-500 million cases of malaria, killing between one and three million people, the majority of whom are young children in Sub-Saharan Africa. Ninety percent of malaria-related deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa” (Wikipedia).

The anti-malarial meds we take are reported to be 90% effective. So one out of every ten mosquito bites from malaria carrying mosquitoes could effectively transmit malaria to one of us. Thankfully we have been pretty careful and have not been bitten too many times. But it seems like every week there is someone at the school who is sick, presumably with either malaria or typhoid, two of the most common diseases here. It seems that everyone gets one or the other some time. We have been extremely careful with water and food and still both Stephanie and I have experienced a day or two’s worth of illness.

We have learned whole new levels of trusting God while we have been here.

I will not miss

I have been thinking a little bit here and there about the things I will not miss about living in Nigeria. At or very near the top of the list: This lightbulb.

This is the lightbulb connected directly to NEPA, or the Nigerian power company. When this light is on, we have “light” (which, being translated, is power from the power company). When this light is off, it indicates that NEPA is off. It is often off. If we’re running electricity in the house from the generator, there is really no other way to tell if NEPA has come back on unless we look out our window. In our “parlour” (a.k.a. living room), we can look out across the way at the light on Okese’s (our neighbor’s) porch to see if NEPA has come back. When I am in the kitchen and NEPA is off, I have to look out the kitchen window (leaning over and craning my neck to see around the partially open window) every two or three or five or ten minutes to see if NEPA has come back on (the lightbulb pictured above). Most of the time I am disappointed. It is frustrating to have to look out the window so often just to see if we have power.

I will not miss having to run the generator, or filling the generator’s tank with gas. I will not missing having to call on my neighbour when the generator is not working properly. I will not miss worrying about the fact that I’m using a borrowed generator and if something goes wrong I will feel responsible to repair or replace it.

I will not miss having to fill the uptank, fill the downtank, open the valve, turn on the pump, reliant on when “board water” (city water) is “rushing” or “floating very nice” or rely on needing to have NEPA on to run the pump to fill the uptank.

I will not miss having to lock every door all the time. Or any of the myriad other general safety concerns here. Driving at night. Being robbed. Just to name a couple. I will not miss having to put DEET on Timothy when we go outside to play.

I will not miss “living out of an action packer.”

I will not miss police checkpoints.

I will not miss rats or cockroaches.

I will not miss the waiting. There is no such thing as instant gratification here. Unless you’re cutting open a pineapple and decide you need an immediate little snack.

I will not miss the thin layer of dried sweat caked all over the skin of my face and my body accumulating after only a few hours of sitting in 80+ degree temperatures.

I will not miss how when something breaks it isn’t easy (or even possible at times) to get it fixed.

I will not miss the difficulty understanding someone who is speaking (or trying to speak) English, but an English that is so heavily accented that you have to ask two or three times for them to repeat what they are saying.

I will not miss not having a dishwasher, washer and dryer, unlimited supply of running water, central air, furnace, oven, shower, water heater and the power always on to run them.

Did I mention rats and cockroaches?

Things I Will and Won’t Miss

I will not miss the heat, the wetness, the humidity, the dampness in the air.

I will miss the predictability of the weather. I never have to think about whether or not I will need a coat. Or even long sleeves. I don’t think it ever gets below 70 here.

I will not miss having to stop and a different stand for every last little thing.

I will miss the relationships I have developed with the proprietors of those shops.

I will not miss having to have cash on hand in my pocket and never know for sure whether I will have enough for that day’s expenditures.

I will miss the tangibility of having to pay cash for everything.

I will not miss the unpredictable traffic or the whacked roads.

I will miss the “no holds barred” kind of driving I get to do here and the relative enjoyment derived from driving on dirt roads where you can’t go more than 5 miles per hour. It always makes me think of how much I would love to go to Canyonlands National Park someday and drive those types of roads in the U.S. with the amazing scenery of southeastern Utah.

Things I Will Miss

I will miss the predictability of the sunrise and sunset times. The sun comes up around 6:30 and goes down around 6:30.

I will miss the fresh tropical fruit, especially those things you can’t get very easily (if at all) at home.

I will miss looking for lizards with Timothy.

I will miss the huge mango tree in our compound.

I will miss seeing people in their traditional dress here. The patterns and colors you see on people here… wonderful, amazing, beautiful, sometimes a little crazy, but never lacking in vivid self-expression, especially on Sunday.

I will miss our neighbours. Okese and his wife Stephanie, their beautiful children, Pearl and Odara, Obinna and his wife, Helen, their three children… the two older of which usually mercilessly picking on their younger daughter (that part I won’t miss), Chinidum the medical doctor, and his wife (who works for UNICEF), Everistus and his family (darling cute daughter and he is such a loving father to his baby), and the “singing lady” and her son although I am sure she is too old to be his actual mother.

I will miss my teaching at the school. It has been such a privilege to spend so much time studying, reading, and teaching from the Bible.

I will miss the students, fellow teachers, and the host missionaries. I will miss them deeply. I love them all very much.

Igbo Names

It seems like everybody around here is named Chi (pronounced Chee) something or Chukwu something or like that. Chukwuka. Wachukwu. Chinidum. Chinyere. Chukwudemekwu. Chinekeokwu. That's because Chi, short for Chineke, or Chukwu both mean God and the cultural God-consciousness here is very great. There is awareness in many of the names of the relation one has to God. I can relate to this. I named our son Timothy because in the moment he was removed from his mother's womb via C-Section all I could think of was my thankfulness to God and the name Timothy means to honor God. But it's not quite the same, is it?

Other Igbo names include Obinna, Ikenna, Ngozi. These from the family that sells me bread and eggs. Nna means father. So the sons are named heart-of-the-father and power-of-the-father. Their sister, Ngozi's name, means blessing. I should mention that Igbo (pronounced Ee’-bo) is the predominant language spoken where we are living here in Enugu. There are about ten or dozen major languages here, besides the hundreds of dialects and regional variations. At the school alone, the major languages of Yoruba, Hausa, Efik, Tiv are represented alongside Igbo.

Ndubuisi is a common name here. It means “life is supreme.” Don’t ask me, I’m just reporting the facts. There is obviously an additional layer of cultural meaning here that escapes me at present. There are two main spellings of the name, but I won’t go into that either!

Emeka. Another common name. It means “well done.” Also short for Emekachukwu, meaning well done, God (i.e. God’s work is well done). Not to be confused with how you want your steak cooked here. There is no steak. The beef is extremely tough and must be cooked for a minimum of ten or twelve hours to be palatable. Unless it’s ground beef. And everything is cooked well done.

Kingsley and Samuel are common names as well. I don’t know about the name Kingsley, but Samuel often carries a connotation of devoted to the Lord (just like the Bible story in the book of 1 Samuel). I have heard two beautiful stories associated with the name Samuel in relation to their circumstance.

One day I was consulted as to an argument as to which was greater, Igwe or Ezeh. Igwe carries the meaning of cloud but also has a greater cultural connotation of some other traditional worship practice while Ezeh refers to a king. It wasn’t until well after the argument that I realized the nature of the question. The two individuals in question were arguing about which of their namesakes was greater.

Some people are named after days of the week: Friday, Sunday, Monday. Yet some others are given English names that relate something special about their birth: Promise, Blessing, Faith, Peace, Charity.

I counted it an honor recently when I was given an African name. It was associated with the fact that I had decided to purchase a couple of outfits like the ones that folks here usually wear. I asked the principal of the school to come up with an appropriate name and he could “christen” me at the next following church service as I was scheduled to preach anyway. In the introduction to the name it was mentioned this would be my last time preaching there (we are heading home in just under two weeks). But since only God knows at this point whether we shall return here to Nigeria, the name I was given corresponds with that phrase, God knows.

I was reminded of the prophet Ezekiel’s response to God’s question, “Can these bones live?” Ezekiel responded, “Thou knowest.” A fitting response when confronted with a direct question to which you don’t really know the answer and is really, in the end, in God’s hands anyway. And so, my Igbo name is “Chima.”

Rats!

As you may have heard if you have followed my Facebook updates, we have had an ongoing rat problem. This goes back to the beginning of time. We first thought it was a lizard that was taking little bites out of fruit that we would leave out on the counter.

No, we were assured it must be a rat.

After hearing a number of heartwarming stories such as the one about how rats will eat your toes if they are sticking out under the covers… we decided the rat must die.

After what seemed an eternity (it must have been three weeks at least) we procured a trap. After setting it and being unsuccessful in my first half dozen or so attempts to the kill rat #1, (they’d eat the bait and the trap wouldn’t go off, or else the trap went off but there was no dead rat in the trap). So I gave up and put the trap away, for good or so I thought.

In the meantime we had started to amass casualties. At first it was the bananas. Then the potatoes. I thought this or that would be safe… avocado, mango, peanuts in a Ziploc storage bag. It seemed nothing was safe. One night we had Timothy’s car seat in the house. And that got eaten up. So we put everything far out of reach and made sure everything was locked up at night.

Some weeks later, my Pastor came to town, and he suggested perhaps a little cooking oil on the trap might be enough to do the trick. Sure enough, I managed to snuff the life out of a couple of them that way!

But then they were back to their old tricks, eating the bait, not setting off the trap. Nevermind. I give up. Since we’d learned to lock all of the edibles far out of reach, we should be out of the woods. NOT!

We discovered one morning much to our dismay that one of our hard plastic medicine bottles containing zinc supplements had been chewed. Not only did the rat chew open the bottle, he managed to chew the plastic on more than a couple zinc capsules. What pain. What misery. And if that wasn’t enough, he chewed through the plastic lid to a bottle of cooking oil.

In the words of Bugs Bunny, “this means war.”

I enlisted the help of Stephanie in setting the trap this time. We rigged a ketchup bottle top with peanut butter and peanuts and made sure the peanut butter went in under the lip of the cap and then tightly fastened it to the trap with a rubber band. Later that morning around 1:00 a.m., I woke up needing a trip to the bathroom and heard this “clink” . . . pause . . .”clink” . . . pause . . . “clink.” Without even heading to the kitchen, I suspected I knew what that sound meant. The rat was stuck in the trap trying to escape. Sure enough, to my horror, there it was. The trap was upside down so I didn’t have to look at the little thing’s face quite yet.

WARNING: The following paragraph is rated PG-13 for violence and horror.

Trying very hard to come up with a decent game plan in very quick order and yet quietly for fear of waking the house, I grabbed a shoe. Not a regular walking shoe, mind you, but this little piece of rubber they use for shoes here that weighs about one-fourth the weight of a walking shoe. I tried beating the rat three times with the lightweight shoe. It simply squeaked and looked like it was renewing its efforts to escape the trap and starting to make some headway. I was horrified. This is awful. What am I going to do??? It didn’t take long. I knew the thing had to die. The moment it cracked the zinc bottle its fate was sealed. With the shoe still in my hand I decided my only remaining option was to smother it. So I did. With my little black rubber shoe. It was horrible. After it was over I just wanted to cry.

I climbed back into bed and sat there wide awake for about half an hour, thinking about the awfulness of the deed I had just committed. I shuddered. I tossed and turned. And finally, restless, dreamless, unhappy sleep.

As I was reliving the horror with Stephanie the following morning she suggested the cast iron frying pan might be a better thing to try in the event there was a repeat of the previous night’s episode. She also wondered what kind of television or movies I had been watching that gave me the idea to suffocate the thing. Actually, it took me back to my childhood. I watched portions of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” at too young an age. I was never able to get the horror of a certain suffocation scene out of my mind.

I concluded the ketchup bottle cap was too large and had prevented the trap from closing properly. I decided I’d try a Coke bottle cap next. Two nights passed, no rat. Walking into the kitchen late at night, I would start talking trash to any rat that might be around. “Yeah, I killed your brother, and your father, and your mother. You want a piece of this? Come on, let’s go. I’ve got some peanut butter right here. And the steel jaws of death. And if that doesn’t work, I’ve got a shoe.” Two mornings later, however, I saw #4. So the trap is once again set tonight. We shall see what we shall see.

Lagos

After having been to Lagos, I can honestly say I have been through the fire and I’ve been through the flood. Like Paul, I have now been shipwrecked three times and have been in perils of robbers. Unlike Paul, thankfully, I have not spent a day and a night in the deep.

We planned our incoming and outgoing Nigeria flights so as to avoid Lagos at all costs. From all of the negative things I had heard and read about Lagos, I thought I would be pleased if I never had to shake “Lagos dust” off of my shoes. And then as fate would have it, we planned a side trip there while I was here.

We had the great privilege and honor of having my Pastor from the United States come to Nigeria to visit us. Truly, the only reason he wanted to come was to visit us. I was, of course, greatly humbled by his sacrifice.

Bro. McLean, on the other hand, decided this would be an optimal time to plan a “That I May Know Him” seminar in Lagos so he could present his excellent teaching on the Godhead to a wider audience there. In addition, it would be an excellent opportunity to utilize my Pastor’s evangelistic experience to the utmost, having him preach evangelistically wherever and whenever possible.

Time, and space, not to mention your patience as well as a dignified courtesy prevents me from narrating the entire tale of our adventures while we were there. But I will suffer a couple paragraphs of the highlights (or, lowlights, if you rather).

It rained and it rained and it rained and it rained. And the car that was transporting us from point A to point B was not well equipped to spend two hours traveling fourteen miles one way in pouring rain. With the leaks around the sunroof, I would imagine that my Pastor had a few liters of water drip or otherwise soak him each of the two days of the scheduled seminar. Neither was this car adequately equipped to drive through the lagoon that Lagos becomes after a very heavy rain. On both days we ended up “abandoning ship” in the middle of the road when the car reached a point where so much water had poured in on to the floorboards and up into the engine that the car was unable to proceed further.

 

Traffic in Lagos can be horrific. As I mentioned, fourteen miles to go two hours. Stop and go traffic like I have never experienced. And there are no emissions requirements here. Exhaust like you cannot imagine, that is, when we were able to have the windows down. Five lanes of traffic on a two lane road. No a/c in the car, and you can’t have the windows down a good part of the time because it’s raining so hard.

To top it all off, on our second night in the hotel we heard a series of gunshots. At times it sounded like they were coming from inside the hotel. For about forty-five minutes I lay there in bed (this is around midnight) scared to death, thinking this night might be my last. Trying to plan what I would say should the robbers break my door down… “anything I have is yours, only please spare my life.” I did hear someone knocking quietly on my door at one point during the affair, but I would not have gone to the door for anything. Bro. McLean called my cell at one point between series of gunshots and asked if I was okay. I timidly eked out a fake “I’m okay.” He was just as much in the proverbial dark (and just as terrified) as I was.

The next morning we found out that the hotel staff had called the police because the estate next door to the hotel was under attack by robbers. The police surrounded our hotel’s compound and they were the ones firing the shots in order to keep the robbers from entering our compound. The knocking I had heard was one of the hotel’s staff, wanting to let us know what was happening and that we were safe. They said they were not able to use the phone at that point in time. Figures.

And what of the seminar? Both days the attendance was dismal due to the heavy rains. But the Bible school in Lagos did end up with some new enrollees in the program from the advertising leading up to the seminar!

And my Pastor preached with his usual flair and there was a great response in all three of the evening services back on the other side of town!

I’ve Got Rhythm

I thought I had a decent sense of rhythm before I came to Nigeria. I could clap on the beat, off the beat, and in any other sort of predictable pattern or rhythm I could imagine. But I never imagined what I have encountered here.

It's not the clapping that's the hard part, though. It's the clapping and singing. You see, the clapping here is nearly always some form of syncopation. You clap on a beat, then you clap a second time a quarter of a beat before the next beat. The easiest way for a music-reading person to visualize this is the dotted eighth followed by a sixteenth note.

A majority of the time, this syncopated clap pattern occurs only once during each measure (that is, for every four beats, assuming four-four time, there are two claps, one on the beat, and one immediately following just before the next beat).

So why can't I sing and clap at the same time? I have actually accumulated a fair amount of musical training over the years. Three years of music theory (if you count counterpoint) and oodles of piano and voice lessons, I would think I would be capable of ready adaptation. But no. Three months later, I am still challenged by trying to sing and clap properly during a single song.

I will beg off the accusation by claiming that I have been concentrating too much on trying to keep with the clapping, and not enough attention on the singing. I know, I know. I should simply stop clapping, and try to learn the words and melodies to some of the songs. But even when they're singing in English, I can't understand all the words. In fact, some of time, I can't even understand more than a word or two. But that's no excuse. More often than not I can pick out most of the words.

I guess it comes down to laziness, pure and simple. It's just easier to clap. I enjoy clapping. It sure beats the work of trying to learn new melodies (even to familiar tunes at times, but sung with widely melodic and rhythmic contours that vary to an extreme from how we sing the song back home). And since we're here only one more month... well, it'll be a miracle if I manage the dexterity to do it.

A drop of water in the desert

I had a different title for this post in my mind at one time. Maybe I will share it with you later in the post.

There are some days here where living is hard for a Westerner with a Western mindset. Things just don’t work here like you think they should. On any given day, your a/c could go out, or your stove, the toilet might start leaking, or you notice rainwater flowing in to the house due to erosion under the concrete. And when these types of things happen, when something breaks, there usually is not a quick fix. It could be days. It could be weeks. Who can tell?

Or you might be driving along in a predictable pattern on a familiar road when all of a sudden this crazy man comes out of nowhere trying to get past you, speeding up and clipping the bumper guard on your Pajero.

You might discover that your entire dwelling unit has been disconnected from the main power grid for no apparent reason and with no realistic hope for soon repair.

You spend $140 to fix the generator and three weeks later you turn around and spend another $140 to have a different guy fix the same thing because the first guy only appeared to know what he was doing.

I was going to title this post, “Coke, Nescafé, Heinz Ketchup, and Snickers.” The current title, referencing water in the desert, may be a bit extreme. Obviously, in the desert, one drop of water will not go very far. You would need quite a bit more than a drop to make a dent in your thirst. I find here that I need close to twenty or twenty-five ounces when I am feeling parched. But these four items are very high in the “top ten” things that help us to keep our sanity when we need to escape the reality or the oppressive heat.

You crack open a cool bottle of Coke, stick in your straw and start to sip the carbonated bite of acid that only a Coke can provide. Or you unwrap a Snickers bar and you remember what it is like to live the U.S. where such sugary snacks are plentiful and cheap and there is a recollection that “Coke is it” and that “Snickers satisfies.”

Nescafé? Everett is drinking Nescafé? Has the world come to an end? No. It’s just that you can’t easily get a decent cup of coffee here. Nescafé is easy and relatively inexpensive. And it brings a similar sense of comfort to simply have something that some may consider at least a distant, maybe “shirt-tail,” relative of the real bean.

Ketchup? Yes. More need not be said. Except to say that Timothy LOVES ketchup. He even wanted it on his gluten-free banana bread recently (that Sis. McLean so graciously and generously provides for us). We said, “uh, no. We don’t put ketchup on bread.”

Now there may be some of you that would expect more from us. Maybe that “drop of water” in the desert could just as easily be accomplished in prayer. Could be. But all I know is when I’ve had about all I can stand, and that rivulets of sweat have caked into my skin and there is no electricity and I haven’t turned on the generator to run it for three or four or sometimes even five hours into the evening, that ice cold Coca Cola hits the spot better than just about anything I can imagine. Except maybe a Butterfinger Blizzard from Dairy Queen.

A Trip to the Village

 

Last Friday we took a road trip over to Achi, a village, or series of villages actually, that was about an hour's drive west of here. The plan was that Bro. McLean would give a presentation he has given numerous times, usually primarily to a ministerial audience, "That I May Know Him," an in-depth study of God manifest in flesh, Jesus Christ.

The first thing you should know about such trips here is that it is virtually guaranteed you can expect the unexpected. On a previous such trip, we were supposed to be in a large government building and we were notified we would have to delay the start of the meeting because they were bringing a body to the building. Apparently some government-type person had passed away and a portion of the funeral services were going to be held there. Bro. McLean normally schedules the meetings to start at 9 a.m. and he plans to arrive no later than 10 a.m. hoping to start the meeting by 10:30 or so. That particular one did not start until 11 a.m.

So I wasn't terribly surprised this time when we found out that Bro. McLean was expected to preach, instead of presenting his seminar material. We arrived right around 10 a.m., a church service well in progress, and we were eventually ushered in to a “waiting room” in the familial house of the student (Samuel) who had invited Bro. McLean to give a presentation in his village.

After some minutes of waiting (maybe fifteen, maybe thirty or forty, I can’t really say), we went to church. The singing part of the service had mostly concluded. Any hope that it’d be preaching and out were dashed when they proceeded to go through all of the “normal” parts of a Nigerian Pentecostal church service. Prayer, Intercessory Prayer, Prayer for the Anointing, Prayer for the Power, Prayer for the . . . well, you get the point. Their custom is quite a bit more praying, quite a bit more singing, quite a bit more of other things than we are generally accustomed to. And it was mostly in Igbo so I understood very little of what was actually going on. After some long time, we were introduced one by one and some bizarre echo sound effect thing was effected after each introduction. A hearty “Praise the Lord” seemed to be expected from each person as they were introduced, but since Bro. McLean didn’t, I didn’t.

After the "conclusion" of the service, or, I should say, “our involvement” in the service as it had started long before we got there and it was still going on after we departed the village, we were ushered back into the waiting room, and, after a short amount of time, Samuel brought in a coffee table and a plate of garden eggs and pieces of coconut alongside a plateful of spicy peanut sauce. Drinks were provided, maltina, boxes of fruit juice, water. Maltina is this non-alcoholic beer that does not agree with me. I drank a whole once, and regretted having done so for the next few hours. Small bags of peanuts were provided. A sizable bunch of bananas was brought along with boxes of crackers. Last, but not least, three crocks of dishes were brought containing white rice, ofe akwu (a spicy stew containing among other things spinach and fresh palm oil), and chicken. This was just for our immediate consumption. They also sent us home with avocadoes, the unconsumed bananas and crackers, a couple very nice pineapples, and two live chickens, alive and kicking.

One other thing you should know about such trips is the randomness and frequency of police checkpoints. I think there something like eight of them on this particular trip. All told on the last two such trips I have been on, the police have asked for various things including my 1.5 litre bottle of pure water, a dash (or bribe), one of them simply wanted to scold us for something or another, and one wanted to see the proper paperwork to allow the tinted windows on the McLean’s new Pajero (which they do keep with them in the g.c.). Most of the time you simply show a friendly smile, greet the officer with a standard courteous good morning, or good afternoon, how are you, and all is well. I have not experienced one of these encounters going south and I hope never to. Oh yeah. You’re probably wondering about the guy who asked us for a bribe? Bro. McLean simply said (in response to the officer asking for something) “well, I would be happy to pray for you.” A brief discussion ensued, “Oh, you’re a priest?” “Yes, we’re missionaries.” “Ok, have a nice day.” Something like that. Wild.

Thursday at the Market

I finished up at the school a little after 1 p.m. last Thursday and headed straight to the “street market” (in a subdivision of Enugu known as “New Haven” Layout) and saw all of my regular market ladies. I bought five large roma tomatoes and four large red onions from Jennifer ($2.10). I had been wondering about the leafy green vegetable they supposedly use in soup, here, so I asked Jennifer what was the story there. She explained that it’s “spinach.” But it doesn’t look anything like the spinach we know. She said if I wanted some she could get me some for fifty Naira (about thirty cents, U.S.). I passed for the time being and went next door.

I picked up a pineapple, watermelon, two avocadoes, and a small bag of limes from Mrs. Okonkwa ($4.90). There’s a lady next to Mrs. Okonkwa who sells plantain. I decided I needed some. A medium size bunch of medium size plantains (five of them) cost $1.80. Then I made my way to the “green vegetable” stand.

One and a half kilos of carrots (about 3 pounds) and a cucumber from Rose set me back a whopping $3.60. She didn’t have any lettuce that looked nice. The green peppers she had out were pretty sad looking, too. And I didn’t need potatoes from her today.

Before leaving… I decided I did want to give the spinach a try. I went back to see Jennifer and she hollered out the name of someone in a neighboring stand behind her that she needed some spinach, or at least I assume that’s what she said. This other lady came with two huge bunches and said they were a hundred Naira each, roughly double what Jennifer said it’d be. Jennifer and this lady had a few words between them, Jennifer didn’t look too happy, and then the lady gave her one of the bunches and walked away. They bagged it up for me and I asked Jennifer how much I owed her, and she said fifty Naira.

Jennifer explained that I needed to boil some yam diced small, and to either put the cooked spinach on top of the yam, or put the yam on top of the spinach along with some fried onion, hot pepper and fresh palm oil. I haven’t had the courage to buy fresh palm oil nor cook with it. The hot peppers here will knock your socks off so I am passing on them as well this time around. As for the yam . . . I’ve tried it. It’s all right. But it’s a real pain to peel and I’m not up for picking another one of them up any time soon. I’m simply going to try just cooking the spinach just like I would back home, lightly sautéed in olive oil and garlic.

Closer to home, in GRA Layout, I didn’t see the girl named Promise (pictured above), from whom I frequently buy bananas and pineapple. I also didn’t see the apple guys again today. They must’ve gone through all of them and now there are no apples to be found in the city until the next shipment comes in. I think it’s been three or four days now where I haven’t seen any apple guys. That’s not good because Timothy needs his daily apple (or two or three, some days). I think we’re down to seven left, so we may be able to hold out another seven days, if we’re able to keep the ration to one a day.

Last, but not least, I also bought $6 worth of phone cards from a girl named Ogi (that much will last about half a week depending how long we’re online and how many minutes I use to call home). I also bought a loaf of bread ($.90) from . . . that corner shop across from the big church by our house. Did I mention that the bread here is rather sweet? It’s . . . hard to explain. It’s got the character of “Texas Toast” but sweet almost like a brioche but not quite as nice. It takes some getting used to. Although I do like it. Makes a great french toast.

$20 poorer, arrived home around 1:50 p.m.

Driving in Nigeria

Finally, the post you’ve all been waiting for. What is it like to drive in Nigeria? Well I can’t speak for Nigeria as a whole, as I am sure that Lagos is its own unique experience, but driving in Enugu is . . . well . . . every time I get behind the wheel I can be fairly certain that I will experience an adrenaline rush at some point, if not at multiple points during the trip. At least my first few experiences have yielded that result. I assume that this uneasiness will decrease over time.

First, there are the roads. They’ve got some killer potholes here. I mean deadly. You could lose a wheel casing in some of them. Then there are the two foot drops for gutters instead of curbs. You’re driving along at 30 or 40 kph and suddenly you have to slow down to a bare crawl because there is a crack in the pavement two feet long the full width of the road. Same thing on the highways.

Then there are the road rules. There aren’t many. Maybe two. The first rule of the road is the biggest vehicle wins. You just nudge forward when you want to go and if you have the bigger car, they will usually let you in. If you have a smaller car, you wait longer. The second rule of the road is when you see someone directing traffic, you need to do what they say. Especially if they are carrying a weapon. I haven’t tested what happens if you don’t. I don’t think I want to. Bro. McLean said they get really angry if you don’t heed their direction. Their hand signal for “come” is palm down, fingers waving, instead of palm up.

I didn’t include the part about the police. There are a couple places where I see police officers all the time pulling people over. One place, right by the Ebeano Tunnel, they’re usually making sure motorcyclists are wearing helmets. Another place, I don’t know what they’re doing. I think I saw them pull over a junker. Maybe some kind of minimum requirements for vehicles to be roadworthy? And, of course, I have gotten pulled over once already. I am so glad that Eno was with me! All they were checking was to make sure I was in compliance with the “fire extinguisher in the car” law.

I also didn’t include the part about watching for pedestrians, motorcyclists, and oncoming traffic in the lane that would otherwise seem to be a one way. You have to have about three pair of eyes in order to drive here. I almost had my first accident when a taxicab was running in reverse right in front of me. I was planning to turn right, so I was looking left. I started to pull forward and almost run smack into this taxi. Thank God for saving me from that one! There have probably been half a dozen or so such “near misses” in my brief tenure here to date.

Did I mention the motorcyclists? Insanity, pure and simple. They ride so close to your car they can reach out and touch your car. They pass you on the right and on the left. You pass them. Everyone changes lanes with reckless abandon. You “courtesy honk” if you are concerned someone may not see you, to let someone know you are coming up fast on their left or right, to let someone know that you aren’t slowing down to let them in, or even sometimes before you get to a blind corner where you are turning if it’s a low traffic road. Oftentimes, if you aren’t aggressive enough, you will be honked at because you didn’t push your way through that left turn despite the oncoming traffic or if you are sitting at an intersection and let more than three or four vehicles go by without slowly nudging yourself into the oncoming traffic. Sometimes one of the cars in the oncoming traffic will flash their headlights at you, indicating that you are free to push your way through in front of them.

Did I mention U-turns? That’s one of the most nerve-wracking things. You can just U-turn anywhere, anytime. No one seems to mind as long as you don’t take your sweet time doing so. And there often isn’t much room to maneuver. I haven’t quite gotten the hang of it.

Did I mention the hawkers? They are standing on the road side, and they have to move back a little as you are coming down the road at them because they are in the road.

Did I mention that time in the parking lot at Eastern where there were cars within about six inches in front of me and behind me, with the guy in front of me unable to clear the curb?

Did I mention the accidents or road work?

Oh. And did I mention the oncoming car or motorcycle going the opposite direction of the rest of the one way traffic? Yes. This happens more frequently than you might imagine. Randomly, you see a vehicle coming your way in what should otherwise be a “one way” part of a divided roadway.

Driving here really sucks, sometimes. Mainly when there’s a lot of traffic.

Although I have to say, in a certain sense, I will miss it when we are gone. There’s something truly liberating about a “no rules” kind of mentality when it comes to driving. Although it really isn’t “no rules” here. It’s more of a “we have a number of general rules here, and you can only learn most of them by experience.”

In the U.S., the general rule I follow is of the utmost courtesy. That kind of courtesy here will get you in an accident in no time flat. Not to mention the number of drivers you will cause to become very frustrated very quickly by your inability to learn to drive.

The general rule I have been learning to follow here is that of a less genteel courtesy, but a simple courtesy nonetheless. Always keep the vehicle in motion. Go when you can go. Stop when you need to stop. Season liberally with horn. And use your mirrors. A lot. There are cars, motorbikes, people everywhere.

School

I knew I was in trouble when I gave the students in one of my classes an assignment, to summarize in two or three sentences what it says in Col 1:23-2:5 and the vast majority of responses I received were commentaries on the individual verses Col 1:23 and Col 2:5.

Something was missing.

Teaching here has been a steep learning curve for me. I have taken to writing on the board like crazy, trying to emphasize the things that I want them to actually learn. I have no problem creating a lecture and going on for 45-50 minutes, but when only half of the class (when I’m lucky) is able to pick up what I’m puttin’ down…

I have had to adjust my style and methodology.

Then there is the matter of me understanding them. There have been times (yes, that’s plural, multiple times) where I have had to ask a student to repeat their question two, three, four times and I still don’t understand what they are saying until one of their classmates “translates” for me. It’s really embarrassing, but I am just so unaccustomed to their accent or their individual speech patterns that I can’t make out what they are saying.

I gave out exams for both of my classes last week. I wanted to challenge them. I don’t want to give them a simple true-false or matching exam. I want them to really think. However, if they do not understand the question… it’s not going to show me how much they are able to think. If some of them were only able to understand what I wrote on the board, then the majority of what I test them on will have to come from what I wrote on the board, with a couple additional items from the lecture just for giggles.

Half of each class failed the exams. Ouch. I find out that’s about par for the course for the year one students. The exam I gave for the year two students was a little too long. I ended up giving the year two students a “make-up” homework assignment for which I assigned some extra points for their exam. The year one students I had no pity on. I graded the exam such that it should have been relatively easy to pass.

To cap off last week noting minor irritation, prepping for my lectures later in the week, I get into this commentary on the epistle to the Ephesians (the only one on Ephesians I have here with me, mind you) and find out that the author is one of those folks who actually conjecture that Paul wasn’t the one who wrote the letter. Here’s a clue for you. Ephesians 1:1 starts out, “Paul.” Do I really have to spell it out for you as to who wrote the letter? Paul did. Thank you very much. Yes, yes, I know, there are scholars who believe… blah blah blah. I’m not really interested in going there, you know? Sorry. Rant over.

Then there are the rewarding moments. The extra time with a student after class who wants clarification on something that I’ve said, or the one who really liked the way I phrased an answer to the question “what does it mean where Jesus says to his disciples they are the salt of the earth?” and he just wanted to make sure he had captured the essence of my response in his notes. Or the time where a student asks “was Nymphas male or female?” because the KJV version says “his” and the NIV says “her.” (Answer: NIV privileges certain ancient manuscripts). Or the time when a student in class “gets” the exact same question I had in my mind when I was prepping for the lecture, the seeming contradiction between the Matthean (8:5) account of the centurion asking Jesus to heal his servant, and that of Luke’s (7:3, 6) account that states the centurion sent elders of the Jews, and later, friends to ask Jesus to heal his servant. (Answer: Harmonize the two accounts to reflect no contradiction).

Overall, I am enjoying my time here!

Just a Quick Update on the Gen

I fired Abel the other day. Eno and I took the gen to “camp,” which is basically a giant “street market” full of various mechanical and electrical type workers and equipment, spare parts, etc. It was higher in altitude than where we normally traverse and the drive provided a nice view. We left the gen with a guy named “Anselm” on Saturday who said he’d be able to give us an estimate on rebuilding the AVR by Monday or so. No guarantees, of course, but I am cautiously optimistic.

Where did we find this guy Anselm? Well that gets me to a little longer story. On Friday afternoon, I was going to go over to my neighbour’s house to present their family with a “baby shower” gift, so to speak. The formality here is to ALWAYS inquire about your family as a part of the greeting. When Okese asked about Stephanie and Timothy, I expressed that Stephanie was less than happy about the fact that it’s always 100 degrees and we haven’t had a generator in over three weeks due to an inept repair guy and my inability to fire the guy. Okay. So I wasn’t quite that blunt, but words to that effect, Stephanie’s not happy, it’s hot outside and our gen is three weeks’ kaput now.

I was floored by the response. Okese (and his wife Stephanie) graciously offered to loan us their backup generator until we get ours fixed. Within 20 minutes, it was connected, and power was flowing to our house through Okese’s backup generator. We were stunned. Unable to express our happiness that we can “on the lights,” or, even more importantly, the fans, when the heat becomes unbearable.

Long story short, Okese gave me the name of a guy in “Camp” who we should take our broken generator to, and he in turn called Anselm when we arrived and he found out it was an electrical problem.

Obviously we are still in need of a more permanent solution, but we are extremely pleased with our current workaround!

Electricity Part II (Longish)

Did I mention how much the electricity (or lack thereof) annoys me? Let’s see. On a day some three weeks ago, we had power most of the night, it went off around 5 or 6 a.m., came back on at 8:30. Was on until noon or so. Stayed off until about 3:30. Came one for about half an hour. Off for another hour. Turned the generator on around 5:00. Power came back about 5:45. Turned the generator off. Power went out again around 6:15. Back on at 7 p.m. Off again at 7:30. Our compound’s security guard and gatekeeper, Everistus, tried in vain to get our generator going. I went outside to investigate Everistus’ handiwork. Stephanie thought maybe the engine was flooded. I was inclined to agree. I told Everistus we didn’t need gen power tonight. NEPA (the so-called power company) came back on at 9:45. Off in less than three minutes. Went to bed around 10 expecting power at any moment.

On that particular night we heard singing start just around dusk. The singing went on and on and on. It was melodious. But after about two and a half hours of it we were done. I asked Everistus about it and he said it was for a wake at the Catholic church nearby. Yes. That’s how they do wakes here. An all night prayer and singing affair. I found out much later that they do that every Wednesday eve/Thursday a.m. from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Christ the King parish, “Adoration” ministry. They worship for twelve hours straight, coming from miles around.

Generally speaking, power is on most of the night. Off for a couple hours in the morning. On for a good part of the day. Off for a good part of the early evening. You find that you may have power anywhere from nine or ten to upwards of seventeen or eighteen hours per day. Usually not less than nine or ten. Usually not more than seventeen or eighteen.

Here’s how it might look on a “normal” day. Of course, there is really no such thing as “normal,” here, given our paradigm of life.

Power off from 7 to 9 a.m.

Power on from 9 a.m. till noon or so

Power off from noon till 2 p.m.

Power back on until maybe 6 or 7 p.m.

Power off from 6 or 7 until 10 p.m.

Power on from 10 p.m. till 7 a.m.

You may notice the power fluctuation seems to coincide with when people are home from work and awake. Yeah. I noticed that, too.

A good friend of mine bought a “headlamp” for me. It runs on three AAA batteries. I use it most every day. Thanks, Tom.

A couple days into using the generator we found we had a problem. It was no longer generating properly. Eno came over on his machine (so they call motorbikes here) and he looked at it. No luck. Theory being the carburetor needs to be serviced. We loaded the “gen” into the truck and headed out to find a repair guy. The first place we stopped, the guy was too busy to look at it that day. The second place we stopped, the guy looked at it for about 45 minutes while we waited outside in the heat. Finally, the mechanic determined he could have the carburetor repaired by 4 p.m. (roughly two hours later). We came back and lo and behold it was working again! Yay!! And it only cost me $27. Next day it’s down again. The machine will run but it won’t power anything. Take it back to the guy who “fixed” it. He couldn’t make it go. It’s an electrical problem. But if we wanted to wait a couple days, the electrician he works with could probably fix it. Nevermind. We’ll find someone else. We did. And he fixed it again. Cost me close to $45. Brought it home. It ran power in our house for about twenty minutes before giving up the ghost. Back to square one. Generator doesn’t work. Abel comes back the next day. Works on it some more. He needs $150 or more to replace the coil and the housing for the coil. And then some more for labor. And it’s going to take upwards of a week. Ugh. Will this nightmare ever end?

We have two rooms with a/c units, one of which, our bedroom, we spend 75% our time at home, and the other, the office, we spend less than 1% of our time. Needless to say, the a/c is not running in the office very often. To make matters worse, even when we do get our generator back up and running (assuming we actually do), it may or may not run one of the a/c units, and if it does, it would only be the one in the office.

Three weeks later from Abel starting work on the generator’s coils . . . gen is still not working. I will not go into all of the details surrounding our frustrations with the gen. Not in this post anyway. However, Abel has been over here working on it quite a bit lately. One of those times, he said he would be here at 8 in the morning, and he actually arrived at 8:45, which was pretty amazing considering his track record.

We just completed another major bout of extended time without power last week. Fifty-two hours this time, nearly straight, without power. Monday around 6 a.m. power went out. All day Monday it was off, it came back on twice that evening, once for ten minutes, the second time for about twenty minutes. Then nothing. Nothing Monday overnight. Nothing Tuesday all day. Nothing Wednesday morning till about… 11 a.m. It flickered on and off twice that hour before coming on for a couple hours that afternoon. Then power, glorious power, all night having come on around 10:30 p.m. The four days previous to the 52 hour outage, we knew something was up, as power did not come on at its usual 10 or 11 p.m., but rather, came on around 2:30 a.m. We were seriously close to losing about 10 pounds worth of meat in our freezer when the power finally came back on Wednesday noon. And more than one “breaking point” was reached within our respective mental and emotional states.

Did I mention the problems we’ve been having with the gas for our gas stove? Oh. I didn’t? I guess I will save that for another post. Imagine trying to cook something without a stove or a microwave and you’ll soon be able to imagine life here. Not really… but there were a couple moments of concern we wouldn’t be able to cook a meal here or there. They were short lived as we found a workaround.

One last complaint, and, hopefully, the last one you will hear from me regarding the sporadic availability of electricity. I was reading an “update” from the McLeans recently in which they recounted the “60 hour outage” we experienced the first week we were here. As I read it, I realized that when you read such things, it usually doesn’t affect you, the reader. It doesn’t impact you like it does when you are the one actually going through it. You aren’t the one who is worried that the stores of meat you have labored to prepare and freeze may be lost because the financial cost to run the generator for the amount of time necessary to save the meat exceeds the value of the meat itself. You aren’t the one who sits in bed wide awake at 2:30 a.m., on three hours of sleep, unable to go back to sleep because it’s 87 degrees in the house and 84 degrees outside and there are no windows you can open to start a cross-breeze because the house is configured for being air-conditioned. Wait a moment. I said at the outset of this paragraph that I had one final complaint. What was it again? Ah yes. The complaint. Here it is. My complaint is that when there is no electricity, there is no relief. No a/c. No fan. Might as well get in the car and go for a drive in the air-conditioned Pajero. But when NEPA goes out in the middle of the afternoon, it seems that the lack of power completely saps all of our energy and any ability to even move or think, thus making even the walk to the Pajero seem not worth the effort. As I said, the heat is relentless.

Food

Yay! We are back online after a 52 hour long power outage and even longer (like five days) before my cell provider’s network coverage was fully restored to the area where we live.

Back to the topic at hand…

For the first eleven days we were here we ate like royalty. Sis. McLean is one of the finest home cooks I have ever encountered. And when you consider the limitations of things she is dealing with as far as availability of ingredients, I can’t think of anyone I know who could put on a better home cooked meal here. I sure can’t. For my first home cooked meal, I made a southwestern scramble; sautéed up some garlic, onion and green pepper with some homemade breakfast sausage and added some eggs. Timothy had leftover meatloaf as he is not a big on eggs.

Meal #2: Burgers, Fried Plantain and Boiled Potato. I was thrilled to be cooking plantains in hot oil. I was thrilled to be eating them. Stephanie and Timothy… not so much. A little disappointing, but that means the leftovers are all MINE!

Bought a paw paw. I had no idea what that meant. Did I mention that the oranges here are green? Very tasty. Tasty as the tastiest Florida’s best in January. Tasted the paw paw. It’s kind of like a cantaloupe that tastes kind of like honeydew. Not really. But since I don’t like either of those melons I didn’t really take a liking to the paw paw. Stephanie didn’t mind it.

You have to be careful with the eggs. You have to break each one into bowl by itself to make sure it doesn’t contain . . . how can I put this delicately for you vegans out there? You want to make sure it hasn’t progressed beyond the egg white / yolk stage of chick development. Too much information?

We are going to eat a lot of eggs. I can sense it. It’s one of those things that is easy to prepare, cheap, predictable, and did I mention easy to prepare and cheap?

Let’s see… what else is in our larder? Pineapple. We were pleased to discover that Timothy LOVES fresh pineapple. He eats it up first and asks for more before touching anything else on his plate. Beef, pork. The McLeans have an electric meat grinder. It helps enormously. For beef, you just buy the whole cut (all the cuts are priced identically) and grind the whole thing. Filet or chuck, arm or sirloin. It all goes in the grinder. For pork, you have to call the pig guy. He’ll kill the pig for you but then you get to cut it up, feed it into the grinder and add seasoning as befits sausages. Chicken I do not think we will bother with. They are tough and stringy birds here and more than I am inclined to mess with. But check back with me in a couple months. Maybe I will change my tune.

Bottled coke. Yum. Fanta. Um, I don’t like it as much as coke. Krest Bitter Lemon. That’s a new one. Unique. I like it. Kind of. It’s like a carbonated lemonade made with about one fourth the amount of sugar you’d normally use to make lemonade. I have been drinking Coke like it’s going out of style. At least one bottle a day, sometimes two. They’re 35 cl, which I think translates to something like 12 oz.

Shortbread. I couldn’t resist buying a small package one day. Five precious squares for $1.50.

Rice. Lots of rice. I tried making rice pancakes from rice flour the first week we were here. They were more like crepes. Good, but not the intended result. Stephanie had a similar difficulty. We need to decrease the amount of liquid in subsequent attempts. I made a spicy rice dish using one of the local peppers. They are very hot! If an habañero or a scotch bonnet is a “10” and a jalapeño is a “2” or a “3,” I would say these are something like a “7” or an “8.”

I love the food here. I would eat something different every day of my life if I could. Of course I am sure there are things I would want a second time… I could see myself growing weary of avocado. I think I’ve eaten something like eight of them in the last twelve days.

I’ve been making french fries for Timothy. He LOVES french fries.

Yams? Not. They are a staple here. They’re not like the ones back home. I intend to try cooking one soon.

It’s too bad mango season is nearly over. I really like mango. Bananas are ubiquitous. But sometimes more expensive than one might expect. One day I spent $2.10 for about a dozen small ones. Another day I spent $.60 for about seven or eight of a similar size. I think I bought both sets from the same vendor and they were of a similar quality. Pricing of items can make no sense here sometimes.

Let’s see… what else. Did I mention the Golden Toast? It’s one of the two restaurants the McLeans will go to here. They had some . . . shall I say “unique” items to choose from? In addition to some of the staples, coconut rice, jollof rice, moi moi, puréed yam, they had snails (big or little), scary fish, gizzard-kabobs . . . shall I go on?

I didn’t feel like cooking anything one night recently, so I headed to the Golden Toast and ordered coconut rice (to go with my limed avocado at home), and for Stephanie, spaghetti and a meat pie. The rice was surprisingly spicy and the meat pies were surprisingly tasty. The spaghetti went missing. They ended up giving us double the rice. Oh well. Better luck next time. Stephanie was content with the meat pie.

Church

My first church service in Nigeria was at Graceword Assembly in a village called Umahia just to the north in Abia State. Bro. McLean preached, and Eno (pronounced ay’-naw) drove. It was an ADVENTURE! Just what I had been looking forward to. Stephanie was having her own adventure (NOT) with Timothy not being able to handle more than thirty seconds of his first Nigerian church service.

My second church service was here in Enugu at the church connected with the Bible school here and I was asked to preach. This church, the Jesus For All Centre, is pastored by my good friend Darlynton (pronounced “Darlington”) Jakin. I say “good friend” because even though I have only known him a short while, and have talked to him only a small amount, I feel like he is kin. I am still awed and humbled by the fact that he took a ten hour bus ride to Abuja to pick up our luggage.

Impressions of my first two Nigerian Sunday church services? There is a lot of singing. I mean, a LOT. I mean, more than you can probably imagine. I think there was something on the order of close to an hour of singing in this second service. I can only understand something like half of what is sung. Many of the songs are similar if not nearly identical to songs we sing back home. Others… sound vaguely familiar, but I can’t make out the words or put my finger on the tune. I sang in the second service, just before I started preaching. My message was “More Like Jesus” and so I sang “Make Me More Like You.” I am always touched when the congregation starts singing with me!

Maybe I have a high tolerance for adapting to different kinds of church services due to my background, but church here does not feel a whole lot different from church back home. Except for the heat. And the increased amount of singing. And not being able to understand what is sung a goodly part of the time. Sweat dripping down your face because it’s 90 outside and 95 in the sanctuary. Okay, so I haven’t really experienced that yet. In Umahia the church almost felt air-conditioned due to the sweet breeze that drifted in the open windows and the placement of the building seemed to offset the blazing sun somehow. Church in Umahia was held in a grade school of sorts. There were diagrams of different structures of the body on a chalkboard that looked like it was part of the wall, in addition to English and Math lessons in different sections of the wall. Here in Enugu, the church has a generator that powers the six ceiling fans in the sanctuary which makes a world of difference.

Did I mention how they take offerings here? Everybody marches. Or dances.

They place the offering box in the middle of the sanctuary and they start singing another song. And then, one by one, or row by row, or however the local assembly does it, people will dance their way up to drop some naira in the box. The first service I did not dance my way to the offering box. The second service I did manage to at least make an effort to move my body in a way that seemed like it was stepping in time to the rhythm of the song. Stephanie would perhaps want me to mention something else about rhythm. She has always had no problem clapping in time back home. Here they clap differently. They will do a kind of syncopated rhythm, clapping once on the downbeat, then again three quarters of the way up to the second beat of the measure. Takes some getting used to.

You know what else takes getting used to? Being given a live chicken as part of the offering, and having it clucking in the backseat of your vehicle the whole ninety minute drive back home.

I’d wanted to get a picture of it while it was in the back of the truck, but Bro. McLean wanted to get it off of the carpet as soon as humanly possible when we pulled in to the driveway and I had to run upstairs to get the camera. I’m sorry I didn’t take another picture of it after it had been prepped for consumption or during any part of that experience. We were also given large bags of avocado, plantain, and oranges I think. The oranges here are green. Whaddya think of them apples? Apples, 60 naira a piece. That’s about $.34 with the current conversion rates. They’re small. But pineapple, $1.50 for one pineapple! Yum. More on food in my next post.

Security and Water Part II

You need a key for everything here.

The front gate to our compound is locked.  A guard dog and a security guard that monitors the gate.

When you pull your car up to the gate you honk your horn and the security guard (if he’s around) opens the gate for you to drive in.  Our car is locked and has a security system besides. The security measures for our house… there are no fewer than six security measures for our house.

We have an red iron gate that covers our porch. 

Behind the red metal square there is a padlock on the inside.

In addition to some maneuvering you need to do to unlock the padlock, you also have to pull the gate forward while sliding the deadbolt in order for it to open.

We have a key lock on the front door.

Once you are inside the house there are deadbolts at the top of the front door.

The back door is covered with an iron gate. 

There is also a deadbolt for this door.

On the gate there is an upper padlock.

And a lower padlock.

Not to mention the bars on all the windows. Or almost all the windows. Definitely all of the downstairs windows.

Maybe when we get back home I will post a video to Facebook regarding the locking/unlocking procedure.

p.s. In a previous post I mentioned I didn’t mind not having hot water when taking shower. But I must tell you now that I lost any and all appreciation for the quaintness of bathing here after we got into our place, got our water tanks all filled up and found that our tap water is filthy. I mean it comes out of the tap a pale brown and the more you pour into your containing vessel the darker it gets. If you let the water set for an hour or two the dirt all settles at the bottom. Nice. Not to mention there is no shower here. Okay. There. I’ve cleared the air on that one!

I’d like to refer you to one of Stephanie’s recent blog postings for many more details on the water situation here (see the link below). She has also had more patience than I have in uploading pictures so her page is simply loaded with photos. She was kind enough to organize this post for me here as well (hence the large number of photos).

http://journeysfarfromhome.blogspot.com

Every Drop is Precious

When we went to Ghana in 2007, I had no appreciation for a cold shower. But after being in 90 degree heat for a while, I have found that I really don’t care what the temperature of the water is. A “cold” shower (with water being something around 75 or 80 maybe?) is really not so bad after all. I don’t even mind that it’s just a trickle of water. Saves water that way. Stephanie, on the other hand, has been needing to bring some hot water upstairs to supplement the meager trickle of cold. Timothy also prefers the water to be a little warmer.

When you’re paying for every 1,000 gallons of water being trucked in, you learn to be a lot more frugal with water than you were used to back home. You don’t leave the faucet running while you apply soap to your hands, or when brushing your teeth. You don’t even flush the toilet after every time you use it. I know, I know, that’s completely beyond the realm of most of your understanding. But you have never lived in a place like this.

For one thing, you can’t take a bath in the water here. There are parasites living in the water, and if you soak in the water, you run the risk of getting some kind of bad creature inside of you. More importantly, you can’t drink water that comes out of the faucet. You will get sick if you do.

There are two kinds of water here. Board water, and water that’s safe to drink. Generally speaking, the only water that’s safe to drink is the water that you have sterilized yourself. The most convenient method is using these large 10 liter contraptions made by a company called Katadyn. You simply pour the water into the top 10 liter container, and then slowly, over the course of the day, the water runs through the filtration system collecting into the bottom 10 liter container. I think these run somewhere in the neighborhood of $400 or $500, including the filters. We only had to buy the filters as the McLean’s had an extra base unit here for us already. But the filters alone were something like $60 a piece, and you need three of them. We also brought a few other purifying methods, a “steri-pen,” some tablets, and a little water bottle (I think this is a Katadyn contraption as well). We’ve used the steri-pen some, although we will probably use the large filtration system for most of our clean water needs.

Then there’s “board water.” I don’t really know what that means, other than to say it’s analogous to “city water.” The McLeans do not get board water. For whatever reason, it is not routed to their home. Apparently, at our place, we do have access to board water. As I understand it now (this understanding is hazy at best), we simply “open the valve” and the board water flows into the 1,000 gallon container. Apparently, it can take up to thirty minutes to fill, but you have to be careful that it doesn’t overflow. Honestly I don’t have the foggiest. Now at the McLean’s house, they have a water reclamation system where any rainfall will replenish their supply. How sweet is that! And now that we are just about to start the rainy season here, they will not have to truck in water until sometime in December probably. I love being green. Did you know it’s illegal to collect rainwater using this method in Colorado?

KILLER ANTS!!!

I went to the market today and picked up a kilo of green beans. Stephanie spent the better part of the afternoon picking off the ends and snapping them. Stephanie cooked them all up and I dressed them with salt and a little extra virgin olive oil. A short while later, as we were getting Timothy ready to eat a banana, we notice Timothy acting distressed about something with his shirt. Then Stephanie feels something bite her stomach. She looks down and there is a small red mark on her stomach. We notice a similar red mark on his stomach. I look down and see a medium sized black ant looking like it’s injured. I put it out of its misery with the sole of my sandal. As a minute or two passes, the minor discomfort Stephanie and Timothy were experiencing is transforming rapidly to an intense burning pain. We rush to the bedroom to find some pain reliever to apply to what is now a small red welt on each of their abdomens. The pain reliever kicks in and all is well. My only guess is that this killer ant was crawling around in the green beans and ended up on Stephanie’s shirt. When she picked Timothy up, she held him against her body, crushing the ant. Its defense mechanism kicked in and WHAM. Another day in West Africa.

Of course Stephanie saw two more ants in the bathroom later that evening…

Needless to say, the insecticide will be coming out in full force in the morning.

Electricity

First night here we had some power. I actually woke up cold in the middle of the night (around 1 a.m.). Then about two hours later, awake, and hot. HOT, HOT, HOT. No power. No a/c. No lights, anywhere, in the house. I groped around for my new Nigerian cell phone and slowly made my way downstairs to where I could do some writing, since I wasn’t doing any sleeping at this point. I wandered into a downstairs bedroom and found a candle. As I worked from candlelight, I thought about how things were back in the day before we even had electricity. Candles were it. Or kerosene powered lamps. One thing you don’t realize about candles when you aren’t relying on them for light and you are not living in an artificially climate controlled environment is that candles give off some heat. Not enough, perhaps, to raise the room temperature by a full degree, if there is only one candle in the room, but enough that you notice it if it is near. Three out of the first five nights we were here were unsleepable, due to the heat. For me, anyway. Four out of those five were mostly without power. The sixth, we have had some power. Praise the Lord for his goodness. Psalm 107:8 says “Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!”

Recently we completed a bout of 60 hours straight without any electricity from the power company. It went out Monday the 20^th around 8 a.m. and it was out completely until Wednesday, 8 p.m. I don’t know which is worse, power off completely for 60 hours straight, or intermittent power. Correction. I do know which is worse, given the fact that the a/c in our room does not function when we are on generator power!

The generator they have here at the McLean’s house is massive (they call it a “32k” model). Must be thirty-two thousand somethings. It is in need of an overhaul. I can’t even imagine how much that would cost. And the cost for running it is prohibitively expensive to use for more than about three or four hours per day. Although you need about six or seven or eight hours of electricity per day if you want to keep the temperature in your freezer cold enough to keep meat frozen. Our generator will be on the smaller side, 6,000 watts.

There are two really weird things about the power here. One is the randomness of it all. One minute there’s power, the next, no power. Ten minutes later, or two and a half hours later, or ten hours later, the power randomly comes back on. There is no predicting when it will go on or off with any reliability. The other weird thing is for a room to be pitch black in the middle of a city. I mean, pitch black. Like a cave black.

After nearly 36 hours into our 60 hour blackout, something miraculous happened. God brought us a rainstorm. It dropped the temperature from 91 to 84 over the course of about a half hour. And let me tell you, that 84 degrees with a ten to fifteen mile an hour wind felt like it was 72. It was a beautiful thing. We all walked outside and basked in the joyful cold wave. Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!